Comindwork
We have implemented a new hosted project management solution called Comindwork. You can review the solution here. As an aside, have you noticed how dumb some of the newer company names have become (Techspoke is no exception.) Shouldn't there be some sort of regulation on domain squatters? I digress...
What attracted me to Comindwork was the clean presentation and simple user interface. I had tried out a few different solutions only to discover that they were difficult to understand, were missing key features, or simply sucked (my English vocabulary skills at their best.)
It took about 5 minutes to get set up with Comindwork. Defining our own company was trivial and didn't require a hundred pieces of information when all that is necessary is our name.
Next was setting up our clients. This was as easy as setting up our company -- a couple of fields and that's it. Expecting things to suddenly become confusing, I set out to create a project. Literally, all that is required is the project name, and to specify which company the project belongs. This has to get worse...
Users, Companies, Projects -- all are trivial and take seconds to figure out. Once all of these are created and you have assigned projects to various users, you then discover that each project has the capability of housing Milestones, To-Do Lists, Wiki articles, Blogs, Files for content (SVN compliant), and most importantly, Cases.
Cases are classified into 3 categories: Information Request, Enhancement, and Defect. Cases are what the site refers to as hot-potato, where they are always assigned to a user, and the current user takes an action and either resolves the case, or re-assigns it to another user. Each case supports it's own chat area, with a complete history of every communication and step in resolving the case. The managers can even run a report on case response time.
My favorite feature, and the reason we spent a little more money for the Hosted Workgroup version, is the Client feature. A project can have 3 different types of users -- Manager, Worker, and Client. A client may submit their own cases, and review documents and protected to-do lists. As a manager or worker, I can even assign cases to the Client. It truly turns project communication into a 3-dimensional paradigm.
As a Client, I would have full access to the features set up by Techspoke, because Techspoke is a paying customer. However, if I want to add my own projects, I can upgrade my own account and add my own customers, projects, users, etc. The design behind the site is brilliant because the advertising smacks the Clients directly in the face. And even though I, as Techspoke, may have created the original Client company in the Comindwork database, that doesn't mean I have control over that company. If my Client upgrades their account, I can still only see the projects I am associated with, and the Client uses their system completely independent of me -- even though our companies are linked! Brilliant...
It's been nearly a week since implementing the solution and our workers have begun using it. Now if I could only get the Clients to log in and use the features that I paid for and am so proud of...until then, I will continue to utilize the site and run organized, concise projects.
And the tree was happy.
What attracted me to Comindwork was the clean presentation and simple user interface. I had tried out a few different solutions only to discover that they were difficult to understand, were missing key features, or simply sucked (my English vocabulary skills at their best.)
It took about 5 minutes to get set up with Comindwork. Defining our own company was trivial and didn't require a hundred pieces of information when all that is necessary is our name.
Next was setting up our clients. This was as easy as setting up our company -- a couple of fields and that's it. Expecting things to suddenly become confusing, I set out to create a project. Literally, all that is required is the project name, and to specify which company the project belongs. This has to get worse...
Users, Companies, Projects -- all are trivial and take seconds to figure out. Once all of these are created and you have assigned projects to various users, you then discover that each project has the capability of housing Milestones, To-Do Lists, Wiki articles, Blogs, Files for content (SVN compliant), and most importantly, Cases.
Cases are classified into 3 categories: Information Request, Enhancement, and Defect. Cases are what the site refers to as hot-potato, where they are always assigned to a user, and the current user takes an action and either resolves the case, or re-assigns it to another user. Each case supports it's own chat area, with a complete history of every communication and step in resolving the case. The managers can even run a report on case response time.
My favorite feature, and the reason we spent a little more money for the Hosted Workgroup version, is the Client feature. A project can have 3 different types of users -- Manager, Worker, and Client. A client may submit their own cases, and review documents and protected to-do lists. As a manager or worker, I can even assign cases to the Client. It truly turns project communication into a 3-dimensional paradigm.
As a Client, I would have full access to the features set up by Techspoke, because Techspoke is a paying customer. However, if I want to add my own projects, I can upgrade my own account and add my own customers, projects, users, etc. The design behind the site is brilliant because the advertising smacks the Clients directly in the face. And even though I, as Techspoke, may have created the original Client company in the Comindwork database, that doesn't mean I have control over that company. If my Client upgrades their account, I can still only see the projects I am associated with, and the Client uses their system completely independent of me -- even though our companies are linked! Brilliant...
It's been nearly a week since implementing the solution and our workers have begun using it. Now if I could only get the Clients to log in and use the features that I paid for and am so proud of...until then, I will continue to utilize the site and run organized, concise projects.
And the tree was happy.
posted by Douglas Wright at
6:19 PM
3 Comments:
You know, it might take a while for clients to adopt your technology. There has to be a bit of a cultural change, I guess. I don't know much about your tool, but with our tool being really simple I took some time for our clients to pick up the technology. By the way, we don't pay anything for clients, they get free accounts to view and contribute to our work.
Thanks hulk,
Are you an employee of Wrike, or a user?
Personally, I found the Wrike website to be too busy. The product would also be more expensive than Comindwork.
My needs are met, the interface is clean and easy to learn, and my clients are happy.
Is this feature/functionality still available? how did you do this?
My favorite feature, and the reason we spent a little more money for the Hosted Workgroup version, is the Client feature. A project can have 3 different types of users -- Manager, Worker, and Client. A client may submit their own cases, and review documents and protected to-do lists. As a manager or worker, I can even assign cases to the Client. It truly turns project communication into a 3-dimensional paradigm.
As a Client, I would have full access to the features set up by Techspoke, because Techspoke is a paying customer. However, if I want to add my own projects, I can upgrade my own account and add my own customers, projects, users, etc. The design behind the site is brilliant because the advertising smacks the Clients directly in the face. And even though I, as Techspoke, may have created the original Client company in the Comindwork database, that doesn't mean I have control over that company. If my Client upgrades their account, I can still only see the projects I am associated with, and the Client uses their system completely independent of me -- even though our companies are linked! Brilliant...
Thanks,
Ira
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